Do Cover Letters Go Through ATS? Workday, Greenhouse, Lever

Short answer: usually, if the application has a cover letter field. Employers decide that for each job. When the field is there, the applicant tracking system (ATS) stores your letter with your application. In Greenhouse, for example, it appears in the Documents section of your candidate profile, next to your resume. But in Workday, Greenhouse and Lever, the AI matching the vendors document reads your resume (Workday’s documentation also names the application), and the automatic rejections they document come from your answers to application questions. None of them is documented to score or reject you on the cover letter text. The letter is something a person opens.

So the question isn’t “how do I get my cover letter past the ATS”. It’s “will the right person read it, and will it help when they do”. Below is what each vendor’s own documentation says about cover letters, plus what we saw on live application forms, and a checklist for writing one that works.

Workday, Greenhouse and Lever at a glance

Much of this depends on how each employer configures its system. One company’s Greenhouse form can ask for a cover letter while another’s leaves it out, and the same company can treat two jobs differently.

Greenhouse: a separate cover letter field, set per job

Greenhouse treats the cover letter as its own field, separate from the resume. On the Greenhouse-hosted form we looked at (PandaDoc’s), you could attach a file, link Dropbox or Google Drive, or click “Enter manually” and type it in. Dropbox and Google Drive are options an employer switches on for its job board. Greenhouse accepts .doc, .docx, .pdf, .rtf and .txt files up to 100 MB (Greenhouse support).

Whether the field shows up, and whether it’s required, is the employer’s choice for each job. To see how much that varies, we pulled the public application forms of up to 25 open jobs at seven companies that use Greenhouse on October 14, 2026. Stripe asked for a cover letter as optional on all 25 jobs. Figma had no cover letter field on any of its 25. Airbnb mixed all three: optional on 16, required on 4 and absent on 5. That’s seven companies, not a survey, but the lesson is clear: check each form.

Once you apply, your cover letter appears in the Documents section of your candidate profile, next to your resume (Greenhouse support). It also shows on the interview kit, so interviewers can open it (source).

Greenhouse’s AI feature, Talent Matching, uses only your resume. Greenhouse says the matching algorithm “is only using data coming from the resume” (Data Processing FAQ) and that Talent Matching “does not auto-reject or auto-advance any candidate” (Talent Matching FAQ). Automatic rejection does exist, but it’s rule-based: employers can reject applicants “based on an applicant’s answer to a question”, and only for yes/no and multiple-choice questions (source).

Lever: no cover letter field unless the employer adds one

Lever’s standard application form asks for a resume, your name, email, phone, location and current company. There’s no built-in cover letter field. Lever’s help center tells employers who want one to add a file upload question, and an optional “Additional information” text box is also available (Lever help).

On live forms this looks different from company to company. Palantir’s form has the “Additional information” box with the hint “Add a cover letter or anything else you want to share.” The forms we checked at Spotify, WeRide and Binance had no such box and no cover letter question at all.

Lever’s AI feature, Talent Fit, “uses the job description and candidate resumes”, and Lever says it “is not intended to filter out candidates” (source). As of August 2026 it’s off by default for new jobs. Automatic knockouts in Lever are built on “responses to custom application questions”. Lever’s candidate search does cover “any parseable content attached to candidate profiles, including resumes, notes, and feedback forms” (source). It doesn’t name cover letters, so a recruiter’s keyword search may or may not reach yours.

Workday: a “Resume/Cover Letter” section the employer can hide or require

Workday’s public documentation on this is thinner than the other two, and customer-only documentation isn’t covered here. What Workday’s own training manual says: employers build each job application from a template, and one section is “Resume/Cover Letter”. It can be set to “Hide for All” or “Require for All” (Workday Education). Applicants can attach resumes and cover letters, and Workday parses the resume into your profile: contact details, work experience, education and languages.

The scoring Workday describes uses “the content of the application and resume”. HiredScore, Workday’s AI grading tool, grades candidates “based on how well their resumes match the skills and qualifications specified in the job description”. Workday’s automatic declines come from disqualification questions: if your answer meets the employer’s rules, “Workday will decline candidates automatically (if configured)” (source).

So does the ATS read your cover letter?

In Greenhouse it’s stored on the candidate profile and shown to the hiring team. Workday and Lever let employers collect it, but their public documentation doesn’t say where recruiters see it. None of the three says whether a recruiter’s keyword search covers cover letters. What none of them documents is scoring, ranking or rejecting you based on the text of your cover letter. Their AI matching tools read the resume. Their automatic rejections fire on application questions about things like work authorization, location or licenses.

That changes how you should spend your effort:

• Your resume does the ATS work. It’s the document the matching tools read, so that’s where it pays to reflect the posting’s real requirements. Here’s how to tailor your resume to a job description.
• Your application answers can reject you automatically. Read every screening question carefully and answer accurately.
• Your cover letter is for people. Write it for the recruiter or hiring manager who opens it, not for a filter.

Do recruiters actually read cover letters?

Many do, but the surveys disagree on how many. Every one of them comes from a company that sells resume or cover letter tools or services, like we do, so read the numbers with that in mind:

• In ResumeGo’s 2019–20 experiment with 7,287 fictitious applications, tailored cover letters got a 53% higher callback rate than no cover letter. In its survey of 236 recruiters and hiring managers, 87% said they read cover letters (ResumeGo).
• Resume Genius surveyed 625 US hiring managers: 83% read most cover letters, even where they aren’t required (Resume Genius).
• Novorésumé’s survey of 200+ HR professionals found that nearly 40% don’t read cover letters at all. Among recruiters specifically, 52.8% don’t bother (Novorésumé).

The pattern: it depends on who you ask. In Novorésumé’s survey, HR managers read cover letters more often than recruiters (22.9% of HR managers skip them, against 52.8% of recruiters). In ResumeGo’s survey, 81% of the recruiters and hiring managers said they value tailored cover letters significantly over generic ones. A letter that clearly answers the posting is worth sending. A generic one is less likely to help.

How to write a cover letter for Workday, Greenhouse and Lever forms

1. Check the form first. Required means send one. Optional means send one if you can tailor it to the job. If there’s no field and the posting doesn’t ask for one, don’t force it in somewhere else.
2. If there’s only a text box, paste a short version. On Lever forms with an “Additional information” box, keep it to three or four short paragraphs of plain text.
3. Use a PDF or Word file with real text. Greenhouse accepts both, and Lever lists both among the formats it parses for resumes. Workday’s public documentation doesn’t list accepted file types for applicants, so follow the form’s instructions. None of the three says one is better. What matters is that the text is selectable. Lever’s tip for resumes applies here too: “If you cannot highlight text, the document is likely not parseable.” Don’t upload a photo or a scan.
4. Keep the layout simple. Greenhouse lists tables, columns, text boxes, headers and footers, and graphics among the formatting issues that can make a resume fail to parse. Vendors don’t publish rules for cover letters, but avoiding the same things is a sensible precaution.
5. Answer the posting’s top requirements with evidence. Pick the three things the posting asks for first or most often, and give one specific example for each. Use the posting’s own words for skills you really have. That helps the person reading, and any keyword search that reaches your letter.
6. Keep it to about one page, roughly 250–400 words. That’s a rule of thumb, not an ATS requirement.
7. Name the file clearly, for example First-Last-Cover-Letter.pdf. This isn’t an ATS rule, just a courtesy to the person who downloads it.

Want to check a letter you’ve already written? Run it through our free 12-point cover letter checklist before you send it.

Write a tailored cover letter in minutes with Dovira

Tailoring a letter to every posting is what makes it worth reading, and it’s also what takes the most time. Dovira is our product, built to do that step for you. You add your resume once. For each job, you paste the posting and Dovira drafts a cover letter from your own experience: an opening, two stories relevant to the job, and a close.

• Built from the posting. Dovira works from the job description you paste and drafts the letter around what the job asks for, with examples from your resume. Read and edit it before you send it.
• Edit by chatting. Ask for “a warmer opening” or “shorter” and see it change.
• The resume too. Since the resume is what ATS matching tools read, Dovira also tailors your resume to the same posting. Download both as PDFs.

Your first 3 cover letters and 3 tailored resumes are free, with no credit card. Try it on the next job you apply for.

FAQ

Do cover letters go through ATS?

Usually, if the application has a cover letter field. When it does, the ATS stores your letter with your application; in Greenhouse it appears on your candidate profile next to your resume. In Workday, Greenhouse and Lever, the documented AI matching uses the resume, and automatic rejections come from application questions, not the cover letter text.

Does Workday read cover letters?

Workday’s job application template has a “Resume/Cover Letter” section, which employers can hide or require, and applicants can attach a cover letter. The AI grading Workday describes, HiredScore, compares your resume with the job description. Workday’s public documentation doesn’t describe scoring cover letters.

Does Greenhouse ATS scan cover letters?

Greenhouse shows your cover letter to the hiring team as a separate document. Its Talent Matching AI uses only resume data and doesn’t auto-reject anyone. Automatic rejection in Greenhouse is rule-based, triggered by your answers to yes/no and multiple-choice questions.

Can a cover letter get me auto-rejected?

Not according to these vendors’ documentation. Automatic rejections are tied to screening questions. What can hurt you is a missing letter when the form requires one, or a generic letter a person reads and skips.

Should I upload my cover letter or paste it?

Either works where both are offered, as on Greenhouse. Use the format the form gives you. If there’s only a text box, paste a short plain-text version. If you upload, use a PDF or Word file with selectable text.

Is PDF or Word better for an ATS cover letter?

Greenhouse accepts both, Lever lists both among the formats it parses for resumes, and none of the three vendors says one is better. Workday’s public documentation doesn’t list applicant file types, so follow the form’s instructions. Avoid image files and scans: Lever says it can’t parse information from image files, and Greenhouse lists resumes uploaded as images among parse failures.